The intention of cats

Today, the smell of the air changed.

This happens in the northeast around spring. One day, you walk outside, and it smells and feels different. Spring has arrived; you can feel it. Last night on watch, that happened. We did not “cross any specific line,” but the feeling moved from the South Atlantic to the Mid-Atlantic. The temperature is up; it feels different.

Today, we cruised by Ascension Island. We never intended to stop there.

We buzzed a running fix off Cat Hill, the prominent landmark. To be honest, any island where the prominent landmark is called Cat Hill. Probably is not for me.

We spent the last few days with our symmetrical spinnaker. It is a giant sail that you use to sail right downwind.

We have made good progress, but today, we changed our sail to the asymmetrical spinnaker. This sail allows us to fly slightly off the wind but is still a downwind sail. It also has fantastic branding.

As we discussed the sail change, I noticed a slight difference between objectives and intentions. We all have a shared objective: somewhere in the Caribbean. But intention is an interesting concept. Intentions are comprised of tactics. Is it our intention to go faster or be more comfortable? We can achieve our objective both ways, but being clear on intention and the resulting tactics is essential.

We often align what the objective is - but do not get to the how - or the intention and tactics.

Solving objective misalignment is more straightforward than fixing intention misalignment, even though intention misalignment seems more straightforward to adjust as it is often a set of smaller steps. The truth is intention misalignment is often more problematic. Objectives are macro and can shift, while intentions can usually have a positional nature, making them sticky.

A how convo is more complicated than a what convo.

For anyone who plays Strands on NYT games, you are welcome for all the moon vocab I have been sharing. You should score perfect!

Check out the crazy picture of the moon trying to break through the clouds!